Introduction

Frankly, I don’t think Coco or any of the children I know like making granita; but they certainly like eating it. As with ice-cream, there is not much amusement in the actual preparation; the fun is in the anticipation of the pleasure to come later. When she was younger, I managed to get Coco into the kitchen to make this raspberry granita, simply because she had to help me with gathering the fruit. Being small and supple, she could squeeze through the fruit cage and get all the berries on the low branches that I always find impossible to pick. In the kitchen, the fun was limited to stealing and eating as many berries as she could without my seeing her.

Serves 6

Easy

Ingredients

400g

raspberries

200g

caster sugar

400ml

water

Juice of 1 lemon

Instructions

Put the berries into a round fine sieve, set on a bowl, and push them through with a spoon until only the hard bits are left on the sieve. (As Coco grew older, I could bribe her to do some of this boring sieving by letting her eat some of the berries.)

Put the sugar in a saucepan and add the 400ml water. Bring this slowly to the boil and then simmer until the sugar is dissolved, stirring the whole time. Mix in the lemon juice and then let the syrup cool down.

When cold, pour the syrup over the raspberry purée in the bowl and mix thoroughly. Take a metal container, the shallower the better (a frying pan with a removable handle is ideal, but not a non-stick one) and spoon the purée into it. Place the container in the freezer and leave for an hour or so. After that, beat the purée energetically with a fork to break up all the crystals. Leave the granita in the freezer for at least 4 hours, beating it with a fork every 20 minutes or so.

Put the granita in the fridge for some 20 minutes before you want to eat it. It is far nicer when the crystals are not too solid.